Agreed. Him and Robinette. And a mich more active Adam Schiff. Apparently Moriarty was not so easy to work with. Might explain his dirth of roles as years went by.
The first 4 years of L&O were the best. I wish they would have brought Moriarty as Stone back at least once before they decided to kill him off on SVU.
Going off topic here for a moment….. I agree with your comment about SVU. I dropped out from watching it several years ago. Don’t remember exactly when but may have been around the time Stabler left or when Cragen left. Anyway, my daughter continued to watch it and I started watching it again with her off and on a year ago. This year I have watched it more often, but I am tired of the preaching in each episode. Even my daughter said every episode now has a PSA and sometimes it is one loooong PSA. We now return to Law & Order……
I thought the last episode was okay. All the pieces are in place to make it work. I think they are just rushing to make episodes right now. It was not that long ago they announced it was returning.
Standing up in court to accept a plea that was never formally offered to her? A cop who visits her,without counsel, to tell her about it? An assistant DA who unilaterally arranges it all? There seems to be little investigation before the cops are out of the picture, and the acting of the DA and assistant is, shall we say, uninspiring. Agreed that the latest Tennis episode was a bit of an improvement. I think many of us are trying to will this to be good.
I tuned in late so I only saw the second half of the show so maybe not qualified to give an opinion - but here' s my half of an opinion I thought this episode was a little better than the previous shows as regards the plot and pacing. The original L&O's grabbed you from the start and kept you invested in the plot wondering what the next scene, the next minute , would reveal . This got closer to the riveting pace of the originals tho those who watched the entire episode may let me know if they felt so engaged ( or if I was better off just tuning in for a ' half show ') The big problem to me is still the actors, who seem to be portraying people who have no discernible character at all. I think of how it was when someone like (Jerry O as) Lennie stepped onto the screen - right away you liked this guy,knew this guy and wanted to follow him all along the storyline. And almost all those actors put a stamp onto their roles and kept us engaged in their stories and the action. For now I find the new cast .....uninspiring at best . But I will still give it a chance - these have been challenging times and maybe they' 'll get it all together given a little time. But to paraphrase Tom Waits - you can only hang on for so much time....time....time.
Jerry played Lennie for 12 seasons. You can’t compare a character that was developed and played by an actor for over a decade to characters that have only existed for a few episodes. That’s a comparison you should not be making. Don’t know why people are expecting these characters to be as developed and made their own by these actors within a few episodes of existing.
Of course this is all anecdotal, I think Orbach clicked with the audience immediately. He, like Sorvino, had a lot exposure prior to his entrance onto L&O. Bratt and Davis relied on charisma more than familiarity (and acting chops), as did Richard Brooks, Dann Florek, Waterson and others. Some actors grab, some don’t, no matter the quality of writing. The original franchise had a few that didn’t, but not all at once. Since we can do an A/B comparison with Anderson, he doesn’t rise above the material given. Neither does Waterson, but his screen time as DA on the revival seems less than his time as DA previously. I thought that Hugh Dancy improved in the last episode, rising above the writing. While the ADA, Odelya Halevi, has been saddled with spouting enough PC syrup, that she may be permanently damaged goods.
Agreed. In fact, I thought episode 4 wasn't very good. The writing just isn't there. The situations the characters are put into are not believable. In the last episode, McCoy told his ADAs to go to trial with half a case. In the past, Branch or Schiff would have told them to get more evidence. In episode 3, the ending hung on whether the murderer would tell where he buried the body. The victim's family wanted that concession. An obvious problem, that it would let the murderer free at a young age to commit more heinous crimes, was pointed out by McCoy to his ADAs. Couldn't someone have made the same point to the family? Nope. Give Jack McCoy more screen time. He's the only character I care about. The others, outside of Anderson's Kevin Bernard, seemingly don't have a personality. In other words, they are poorly written. The worst defined is the station captain. I have zero sense that she is was a successful police officer who worked her way up to a position of authority and power. On the other hand, you just knew not to mess with Anita Van Buren. The new captain sounds like a team leader during a business retreat, not a street-wise cop.
He did. And I really liked Paul Sorvino. But Orbach came in and immediately made the role his own. They both had a lot of charisma and screen presence.
Agree to all of this , and Anthony Anderson is a solid actor , totally being used wrong. Also we are learning zilch , about any of the regular cast. Maybe a minor background sub-plot or two , would give any of these characters , a little depth.
I can't agree more. I complained about this in another thread. I used to really love the show but since Stabler left it's all about her. There used to be a lot more stories about other characters, but they're rare now. And she's such a saint. I'm assuming this is all about her being executive producer.
No question , that she is probably one of the 10 most popular characters on TV in the last 20 years. I disagree , the rest of the cast , all get there screen time to shine. The cast is so tight-knit , and she never misses , someone's kids birthday party , a cast and crew bowling night , etc. The shows unwritten rule is, we are a team , like the Yankees or Mets. Ice-T has stated they really are family.
I don't want to go too far off topic so.... . I'd be happy to debate this elsewhere though. And it's not that I don't like her as a person. It's the changes in the series I don't like.
We can’t expect it to be the same after over 20 years. Even a real SVU unit isn’t going to be the same or even have the same group of people in the unit after that much time. That’s exactly the problem the people in this thread have with the new cast. It basically comes down to having a problem with change.
When I say changes I don't mean the actors, I mean the episodes have gotten more and more centered around Benson. When did Cragen, as captain, go out on every case? Almost never. I get that she's still a main character, if not the focus of the show, but it stretches believability that she does. And she's always the saint, never the screw up that Amanda is with all her gambling and family issues. Like the worst thing Benson ever did was lie about beating the guy who kidnapped her while he was handcuffed to the bed. Really? It's gotten a little ridiculous. If I see one more hostage type situation she talks herself out of...
I have not watched the latest episode of L&O yet. But I’m not surprised by the comments about the latest episode. One thing that might help is some sort of crossover episode(s) between L&O and SVU. This happened once in awhile in prior seasons and could give L&O a jump start. There have been several between SVU and Organized Crime this season….mainly due to the Benson/Stabler link.
I haven't timed it, but I wonder if, with all the commercials, that there isn't enough time to develop a more complex plot. I suspect there is at least another 5 minutes of content in the older L&Os. It could just be the writing, and "we've done it all before".
